


Can't Be Beat

by vanceypants



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Alternate Universe, Attempted Sexual Assault, M/M, Pining, Polybius, Sick Jeremy Heere, Unrequited Love, gaming cabinets in love, humans turned machine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 17:39:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18554605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanceypants/pseuds/vanceypants
Summary: A humble arcade cabinet loses an obsession with figuring out his own origins when a clumsy, skate-wearing teen crashes into him.ORHow the Squip learned to replace existential dread with hopeless pining.





	Can't Be Beat

1.

It had taken him nearly 40 years to fully craft the theory, but in the end, life was just a series of blank periods between acts of random cruelty.

At least, he thought it had been nearly 40 years. Truth be told, he wasn’t quite sure how time moved in this place, where everything seemed to be frozen in a layer of grease and dust and nostalgia, pong and pac-man and space invader medleys all battling it out for the One True High Score.

The Squip--he’d borrowed the name from the lettering on the cabinet, the worn text from a third party developer who’d dropped his cabinet off in the dead of the night decades ago, leaving him for a destiny of collecting quarters and cheeto dusted fingers--could see little through his 8-bit screen. He collected the faces of customers the same way customers collected the ding of approval when they were able to add the three letter initials of their names for their high scores. He may not have had as high of a turn out as the pinball machines, but he’d garnered enough of a following in the years he’d spent parked in this clustered aisle of machines.

He used to try to reach out to the others, to try to get a taste for their capacity for sentience.

But there was no need to hasten the pace to the next act of random cruelty, and so he’d stopped that experiment sometime in the mid 90s. 

He didn’t need communication or companionship. What he needed was enough quarters to justify keeping him from the scrap heap, and perhaps an occasional challenge from a worthy competitor.

The former proved more likely than the latter. But one out of two wasn’t so bad, in terms of goals achieved.

2.

The body which collided with him should have felt more solid than it was. But the Squip’s first thought was bird bones, hollow and frail. He thought he’d had a pet bird, once, but then that would require knowing for certain he’d been human, once, and memories weren’t reliable enough to fully depend upon.

The collision was quick and floundering, and the Squip stared through his monitor as the small body flailed about clumsily. Curly hair and flushed face, skates upon feet that curved inward with anxiety. His lips were full and flushed and trembled with the effort to keep himself composed, his hands, nimble, fluttering helplessly over the Squip’s controllers, mashing helplessly at buttons until he was able to right himself.

His reflection shimmered against the screen, though he quickly looked away, as though disgusted by his own visage, as though ashamed of an audience he had no way of knowing existed.

His legs flopped about, nearly giving out again from the clumsy weight of the skates on his feet. 

An oxygen tube snaked into his nose, the wiring slithering down and around to the pack on his back. The sight of such a device wasn’t a new one in this arcade--plenty of parents brought their sick children from the hospital across the street, a brief respite from the trauma of medical interventions and doctorly concerns--but it certainly left the boy looking that much more shrunken and frail before him. His hands moved away from the cabinet, only to fist clumsily into the sleeves of his cardigan, an anxious bite to his lips as he managed, finally, to keep himself upright on his skates.

And just like that, he needed to know his name. All the faces, all the sticky humanity which had passed through these doors, and he’d never bothered to care before.

But this one, this one he needed to know the name of.

He needed his name more than he wanted to know his own name. All the evenings spent trying to solve the riddle of it, figure out what syllables he could replace ‘the Squip’ with to define himself, suddenly felt wasteful and indulgent. What did it matter who he might be, really? He didn’t even know for certain that he’d ever really been anyone before.

But this being, wobbly-kneed and blushing, this being was somebody. He was somebody, a capital s Somebody.

And the Squip needed to know his name.

3.

“Polybius is a myth.”

In the night, it was easy to blur reality with the impressions of the past.

“It’s not a myth.” The figure was tall, and his face was obscured with pixels, but the Squip was certain, as he looked back on the fog of memory, that this figure was Himself. Or what he Himself had been before he’d found himself encased in cabinet and ticking machinery and impossible levels to tantalize.

The girl’s face was similarly pixelated. _Sister,_ he thought abruptly. A new detail. Her name was Sister. Or her title was Sister. It was a difficult thing to grasp upon. Her dress fit over her curves, and her hands moved animatedly as she spoke.

A garble of vowels left her mouth, messy--behind the distortion, he was sure she’d said his name, but he couldn’t pick it out in the memory--before words clarified. “-the government doesn’t leave mind-control technology in arcades.”

There was a small sound, an exhale, and the smallest of the trio, bundled in a wheelchair, his face a patchwork of wriggles and white noise, shifted around uncomfortably. His voice, as always, remained trapped behind his lips.

The Squip suspected that he had no voice at all, or at least chose not to use it.

_Brother._ A pause, an analysis, and then, _Little Brother_.

Another title, nameless as the girl, as Sister, but at least the memories were becoming more clear with every playthrough.

“I know what I saw.” The voice matched the internal monologue of the Squip’s words. More proof that the tall, faceless figure, clouded in the past, had to have once upon a time been him. “And I’m going to prove you wrong.”

Time lurched uncomfortably, a fast forward screech, as his body pushed the wheelchair forward, as Sister followed him. He watched them enter an arcade, watched them search machine after machine, but all in stilted, quickened time. He wanted to force it to slow down. Wanted to hear them bicker and argue, wanted to see them interact, wanted to slow down time until the pixels steadied and fell away and he could see his own face, Sister’s face, Little Brother’s face.

Sometimes, the dialogue would jolt back in. She would laugh, shove him, call his name.

But he could never hear quickly enough to figure out exactly how many syllables made up his name, let alone what it might have been, once upon a time.

4.

The Squip avoided painting a nickname to the boy.

It would have been easier, and perhaps simpler, to choose a trait and just call him by that. Cardigan or Doll or Splotched Skin or O2 Tank. But that wasn’t how humans chose their names, or at least, the Squip was fairly certain that wasn’t how things had been, at least when he’d been a Someone instead of a Something.

He thought.

Maybe.

Either way, he didn’t want to discover a name for the boy in the same way he’d discovered a name for himself. 

He came often, sometimes on skates, sometimes on foot, always with oxygen, often with another boy. The other teen--and he was certain they were teens, though the Squip’s perception on time and age had become warped the longer his machine collected coins and frustrations--wore glasses and hoodies and poor posture and casual laughter, too loud even for the music in the arcade. He (his name, the Squip learned quickly, was Michael, though he didn’t much care for the trivia of it) laughed freely, carelessly, while the other boy’s laugh was reserved, trapped, coiled in cardigan-sleeved hands.

He’d arrive, pockets jangling with change, as they’d rotate through the machines. The Squip would strain to catch his voice, if not his words, as he and Michael would chat. Michael always seemed to lap his scores, though even the boy’s annoyance seemed good natured, gentle, amused even.

“I just, uh, I just need to, um, t-to find my game, and then you’ll see.”

His stutter fumbled from his lips, his lungs heaving as he caught his breath. 

Michael chuckled brightly. “Yeah, whatever you say.”

And they’d find another machine to sink their coins in, with the Squip waiting, and waiting, and waiting to be chosen.

But the days stretched by, and he started to forget what his hands had felt like, pressed so smoothly against his buttons and joystick.

5.

The pixels slipped enough tonight that he saw Sister’s smile when she laughed.

But they were too loud to hear what his human self had said to earn the giggle in the first place.

He clutched the new memory deep within his cabinet, refusing to let it shake loose even when the closed sign flipped to open, and new customers began to fill him with quarters.

6.

“Have you, um, have you played SQUIP?”

“I don’t think it’s a real game.” 

It wasn’t the first time someone had suggested he was a plant, a false game. But the Squip imagined himself holding his breath, as the boy’s curls bounced as he stepped closer to the machine.

Soft fingers brushed over his quarter slot. The Squip remembered how goosebumps had felt, once upon a time, and wondered if there was still a trace of humanity left within these panels that hadn’t yet been worn away by wires and the passage of time.

“Takes money like a real game.”

His hand slipped into his pocket, pulling out a quarter, shiny, freshly minted. He spun it between his fingers, fingernail catching against the ridges. The tip of his tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth as he stooped down, sliding the quarter into the machine.

The Squip swallowed it, taking it deep inside himself. It was still warm from the boy’s thigh, from his palm, and he let the warmth settle throughout him, as the beginning chorus of his theme song began to echo throughout the arcade.

“S-starts up like a real, um, real game, too,” The boy added, as he settled in close.

“Any clue how to play?”

“Nope.” He smiled, an impossibly bright sort of smile, as his hands hovered over the buttons, as he jammed his thumb into the start button.

The gameplay tore from the Squip effortlessly, worn easy with habit. But he could see the novelty reflected in the boy’s eyes, as he began to move his sprite around, collecting tokens, solving puzzles, finding hidden tunnels.

“Th-this is really fun,” He said, in the hazy way of a gamer hyperfocused on their activity.

Level one gave way to level two. And he felt the boy start to fuse with him.

He wasn’t sure when he’d first started hearing his thoughts bleed in, but the boy seemed to pour them as effortlessly as he’d given his quarter.

Insecurities, mostly. Pouring in thoughts about a mother who abandoned him. About his missing classwork with his illness. About his illness itself, nights spent catching his father crying, a man frightened of his only son dying too young.

He gave and gave and gave of his fears, his pain, his sadness, and the Squip devoured them all. Even the boy’s thoughts seemed to be stuttered, though they grew smoother with every pseudo-prayer of anxiety.

He watched as the tension lines in the boy’s face smoothed, as he lost another ounce of unsteadiness. And the Squip was happy to take, to contain something other than spare change and pocket lint within himself.

Level four became level five became level six, and Michael stood on the sidelines, wide eyed and transfixed and curious. 

“Wow, Jer, you’re doing really good.”

Jer.

A name.

But it seemed a diminutive, and only left the Squip more frustrated. Jer. Why couldn’t he figure out what it was short for? The answer seemed so obvious, and yet so far from reach.

How could he reach for anything, without any arms?

The boy’s arms were thin and weak and trembling as he kept himself synced into the game play. He wriggled about on his feet, and thought about his secret crushes and questioning sexuality and aggravated confusions about social structures.

The Squip wanted to give him all of the answers, but for now being a vessel was all he could provide. A vessel to contain, and a distraction in terms of graphics. 

He let himself be used, and waited longingly to collect a name.

7.

“Queere!”

The new nickname settled uncomfortably, as the boy turned from the Squip’s hardware to analyze the new voice.

“Jeremy!”

_Jeremy_

A name, not a title. Jeremy. He took the letters in, deep into himself, and he ached with the urge to grin.

The small boy bounded over, and Jeremy let his gameplay die in wake of an absence of ability to pause. Jeremy. It felt so good, satisfying, to have a name to assign to him.

“Hey, Rich.”

A patchwork of burns crossed over the boy’s face, arching down his body. The Squip could feel Jeremy’s concerns radiating off of him, a pulsation of fears about complications and infections.

“That cute doctor came by again while you were gone.” He grinned. “He totally wants to bang me.” He lisped his s’s, and Jeremy’s expression softened even more than its usual gentle expression.

“I’ll, uh, I’ll b-bet.”

“I’m serious, bro.” Rich leaned against his cabinet, casually fiddling with his joystick. The Squip couldn’t help but feel a bristle of anger that anyone’s hands besides Jeremy’s would dare descend upon him. “Is this the game you keep talking about?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh. I thought, like, you were talking about The Game game, you know? Like, I thought you were just pulling some super retro, post-ironic, abstract meming or something.”

“N-no memes. Just, uh, just high scores.”

“It’s about time you scored, Queere, but I’m not sure this really counts.”

They fell into breezy conversation, and the Squip longed to find himself drift into such an ease of language with Jeremy. To have him look at him with those soft eyes, those pouted lips, that focus of attention. 

He wondered if his face had been one which would have appealed to him, back in the day. He struggled to see past the scribbles of his memories, but the music was too loud to focus, and his buttons still felt sticky from Jeremy’s sweat.

8.

Jeremy’s body crashed against the cabinet, as the larger male fisted his beefy fingertips into his striped shirt.

“Pl-please,” Jeremy whimpered. His eyes were wide, bagged from lack of sleep, and he strained on his tiptoes as the man tugged him upward. He twisted his shirt, until the stitches began to creak uncomfortably, nearly tearing.

His fist knocked into his face, leaving Jeremy dizzy, disoriented, before his hand moved down to dig into his pocket. He stole his change, his wallet, dropping his hold on his shirt to flip through it with a look of disgust.

“This isn’t worth my fucking time.”

Jeremy scrambled, trying for the exit, only to have his wrist squeezed.

The Squip felt a phantom shiver of pain travel through himself as the older man squeezed, twisting, until Jeremy was down on his knees.

“I’m s-sorry! I’m sorry!”

It had all happened so abruptly. Jeremy had been playing moments before, finding himself deeper into levels yet explored. Chasing after victory, as closing time chased after him.

And the next, he was being thrown around, manhandled, robbed.

The Squip watched, rigid and immobile, as the assailant placed his hand on top of Jeremy’s head. He kept him pinned down, smirking as he trailed the thumb on his other hand over Jeremy’s lip, split and bloody from his assault already.

“There are other ways I can retrieve something worthwhile from you.”

Jeremy thrashed, eyes wide, teary, terrified.

_Please help me!_

The fear tore through his mind, through his entire body, and the Squip took it into himself until he was certain it would burn through his circuits.

So he let his wires burn. Let himself erupt with it, rage and possession and terror. The air crackled with electricity, and then the singe of burnt flesh as the flabby man jolted backwards from Jeremy. His body crashed against the ground, and even as the Squip released his jolts of electricity from him, severed the connection, he continued to convulse, mouth foaming.

Jeremy scrambled to his feet. He clutched his cardigan closed, blinking in terror as he looked from the man who’d nearly violated him, to the machine which had delivered electric justice.

His tear-streaked, terrified face reflected in the monitor.

Jeremy took three shaky steps backwards, before he finally turned, bolting outright from the arcade.

The smell of burnt flesh soiled the atmosphere. The Squip wished he could follow, and wished he had arms to wrap around himself for warmth.

9.

Sister had said it was a bad idea. He was certain that was a memory he’d slotted into place at one time.

But the Squip trailed after the memory of his human form, watching as he pried open the locked doors of the arcade and slotting his lithe form into the building.

Alarms failed to sound as he looked around, so caught in the mania of his own craving. The machines were quiet, as he grazed his fingers over each nameplate, searching for an illustrious machine that likely never existed, but he swore lingered in his memories.

So engrossed was he that he didn’t hear the cocking of the gun.

He felt his chest explode outward, the bullet sinking through his spine, and barreling out through his heart. He stared down at his chest, as his knees wobbled, legs crashing to the ground as the sound of the ricochet finally hit.

The shopkeeper’s footsteps were frantic, breath ragged. Fear on his face, of intruders, replaced with dull terror at the sight of the teenager bleeding all over his freshly mopped floors.

Unsteady hands rose, pressing to the fragmented hole in his chest. The Squip could feel himself sinking into the form of his own memory, could feel every quivering, unsteady pulse. There would be no time to fix it, but there was enough time to feel the life drain bit by bit.

Life, which he only remembered in pieces, in nighttime rituals. He floated above himself, watched as the pixels drained away from his face. Skin pale and ashen, eyes wide and blue and heavy lashed. He licked his lips, as though they were too dry, as though he could wet them into being able to say something profound in his final moments.

Nothing came.

“Fuck,” The owner of the arcade stepped closer, rifle pointed at the ground. “You shouldn’t have broke in.”

He’d just wanted to prove his own memory correct. He’d just wanted a moment that wasn’t tacky with other bodies, overstimulating with noise. His motivation was as fuzzy and distant as his name, but his intentions, he was certain, had been pure, or at least as pure as he was capable of being.

His body left wet streaks of blood as the owner hefted his hands under his arms, dragging him into the backroom. The gutted corpses of defunct consoles stared over them. The Squip watched as his past self’s eyes fluttered open, a last lingering look to try to locate the machine that had evaded him this whole time.

Instead, he felt himself being folded up, stuffed into the emptied cabinet of one of the games.

“I’m sorry,” The owner said, genuine sorrow etched onto his face. “I’m sorry. I can’t risk it. I have kids. I...you shouldn’t have broken in. You just shouldn’t have broken in.”

The cabinet sealed shut around the last vestiges of a heartbeat, and both past and present succumbed to inky blackness.

10.

The Squip waited for Jeremy.

He waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Quarters filled his machine. Fingers prodded at his buttons. None fit as well as Jeremy’s.

So he waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And wondered how long it would take until his name would become as rusty as the rest of his memories.

11.

Jeremy teetered on matchstick ankles. His face was flushed with undiagnosed fever. His hands pressed on the outer shells of the Squip’s cabinet.

Was he worried about being electrocuted?

The Squip focused on his own music, the twittering of its melody, and tried to will himself to seem innocent and trustworthy and safe.

He wanted to be a safe place for Jeremy to fall back on.

Jeremy scratched at his oxygen tube, sniffling weakly, as his hand moved from tubing, to his quarter slot.

“I-if you are faulty and, uh, plan on taking me out, I guess, uh, guess now is the time to do it,” He muttered. 

His lips turned into a smile all the same, as he slipped his quarter into the machine.

12.

Jeremy bled his thoughts into the Squip with every playthrough.

_Is my acne ever going to clear up?_

He killed another adversary. The Squip’s circuits ached with pride.

_What if Michael gets accepted to an out of state school and leaves?_

He hummed along with the Squip’s music. The Squip remembered what it was like to have a pulse, and imagined it jumping.

_Who’s going to remind Dad to pay the water bill when I die?_

Jeremy’s sprite was swallowed up with sudden crushing annihilation. His body trembled weakly, and the Squip focused on staying solid and strong, to support his weight.

13.

Would they have been friends, in another lifetime?

The Squip tried to return the bond, to communicate externally, while Jeremy spilled his thoughts and fears and insecurities to him. Just one word. Just a hello. Anything to let him know that he was inside, that he could hear him, that he could help him, that they could get through anything together.

Jeremy made no indication of hearing, as he inserted another quarter to try to tackle another round of defeating his own high scores.

14.

It was the first time he’d dreamed, since he’d been alive.

Jeremy sat across from him. They were outside, and his oxygen tank had been left at home. They breathed in tandem, and the Squip itched with the urge to grab his hands.

So he did. Because he had hands too and he could. Jeremy smiled.

“I think, uh, I think I, um...I think I know your name,” He said softly.

But before he could tell him the rest, the sign switched from closed to open and his monitor began to capture the early morning gamers as they streamed into the arcade. All dreams firmly banished into the world of mirky memories to dig through in his solitude at later dates.

15.

“Polybius is a myth.”

Michael sipped a slushie, as Jeremy leaned against the Squip, not yet playing, content to chat. His hands shook, an indication of an exhaustion he worked so hard to hide from everyone.

He couldn’t hide it from the Squip. He wished he could figure out a way to communicate to Michael to fetch Jeremy a chair, or to scold Jeremy for being so stubborn to contain his own exhaustion from those who cared so deeply for him.

“Y-yeah, probably.” Jeremy admitted softly. “But, uh, I keep dreaming about it.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. Seems, um, seems significant, I guess. I don’t...I don’t know.”

“I know a guy who makes fake cabinets who made a few designs for it. We should save up and buy one. When we move out, I mean.”

“Maybe.”

Except Jeremy didn’t really believe in that fantasy, of moving in together post-grad. He’d expressed it internally, while playing a familiar level, sinking in quarters and confessions. _I won’t be around long enough for that._

What were the odds, that the Squip would learn how to dream again, and that Jeremy would dream of something which had held such significance in his life?

Could he influence in sleep in other ways?

“Are you going to play already, Jer? I need to see this ‘super secret level’ you keep going on and on about.”

“O-oh! Oh, right!” Jeremy’s face lit up in excitement. “You, uh, you’re going to love this. It’s...o-oh, just you wait, it’s otherworldly, it’s _fantastic_!”

16.

It had taken him nearly 11 months to fully craft the theory, but in the end, life was just a series of nights waiting for Jeremy between the warmth of his perfect fingers ghosting his buttons.

And he was certain it had been nearly 11 months. Each day was etched distinctly into his memory banks, overshadowing every haze of a past he still wasn’t altogether certain was truly his own. 

Jeremy helped him feel real in the here and now. And perhaps soon, perhaps some day, he’d figure out a way to communicate that to him. Maybe he could manipulate his monitor, highlight some text over his interface to greet him. Jeremy had spent too long not realizing how remarkable he was.

The shattering of glass did little but accentuate the twinkling of his thoughts. Even as metal baseball bats bashed in the displays of machines, scrambling of fingertips collecting coins as they spilled loose. Crowbars pried open other machines, tore away metal to scrap, and the screech of nuts and bolts was almost human in its distress.

But it wasn’t until they stood before his cabinet that the Squip considered that this might be a problem.

They tapped him at first, lightly, as though testing the capacity he had for damage, or perhaps judging whether he was even worth damaging.

He thought of Jeremy, frightened before his assailant. He thought of how his own body had felt, warm and righteously furious, before doling out its electric shocks.

The masked teen--and he was certain the crowd consisted of teens--reered the bat backwards, before cracking it into his screen.

The Squip’s vision fractured, a kaleidoscope of shapes and colors. 

So instead of focusing on the second crack, he thought of Jeremy. Pretty gentle eyes and soft lips and how he’d spoken to him in his dream.

_I think I know your name._

Another bash and he felt his screws loosen, a mechanical groan shaking loose as his cabinet sagged uncomfortably. Change jangled, already beginning to trickle free from him.

He thought of his sister, her smile, how she’d wrapped her lips around his name back when he’d been worthy of one. 

He thought of his little brother, silent, but he’d looked at him even through the scribbles and pixels as though he’d been someone.

And Jeremy. Jeremy. _I think I know your name._ He would have figured out his name, if he’d just been able to reach out to him. If he’d just been able to let him know he was alive, he was alive, he was alive, he’d once been alive, and please, couldn’t someone just hear him, just once?

The crowbar sank into him, stabbing through him, and he thought of his chest exploding with a single bullet. How he’d opened up with it, and he hadn’t even had time to be afraid.

He wasn’t sure if he was afraid now. But who would be there now, to collect Jeremy’s trembling hands and tender thoughts?

He bled change onto the ground, glass shattering, another crack shaking his foundation.

His name. It was there. Everything was bright, and he could feel it.

Another hit, and it shook it a little further away, but he could reach out and grab it. His name. If he could just grab it, hold it close, remember it, he could figure out a way to share it with Jeremy, and they could figure out a way to-

Another hit, another pry, and he felt his everything explode open, helpless, his wires tearing and his display black, but hot.

He was so close.

He was so close.

He was alive. He was alive. He was alive and his name was-

His name was-

His cord ripped from the socket, tearing and fraying and he fizzled, feeling himself sinking deeper and deeper into the darkness. He drowned within his cabinet, as they broke what remained, stripped him of his mechanisms and quarters.

For a moment, everything was crystal clear. Jeremy’s smile. His siblings’ faces. And his name, blaring, bright, focused.

And then everything spiraled into the final blue screen of death. He scrambled to keep just one memory, just one memory, but in the end, he was left with nothing at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Lemon Demon's Cabinet Man, by which I mean I stole way too much from that song. It's a jam though, highly recommend. Any comments are greatly appreciated. I hope you enjoyed this!


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